Magic Rush, Simple Touch
by kabensi
Summary: After determining Yale isn't for her, Quinn's loving life at Bryn Mawr. Rachel's also at a new school, taking on new challenges. But her life hasn't changed by choice, it's been drastically altered by circumstance.
1. One night to be confused

**A/N: This is a project that I've had on the back burner for a while. It's a little angstier than I tend to write, but I really wanted to explore a future where Quinn was actually getting her shit together and Rachel was the one who felt absolutely lost.**

* * *

When Quinn took the position as assistant manager of the women's soccer team, she assumed it would similar to her duties as Head Cheerio: She'd be in charge of schedules and arranging the dry cleaning pickup and making sure everyone on the team had their paperwork in order. It turns out, the job's really a lot more like being the team's bitch, and not in the way she's used to being one.

Whatever, though, because she's out doing something with a new group of people, she's able to travel to away games, and it's something to chalk up to the college experience.

Bryn Mawr is full of those kind of things.

She's sure Yale would have been, too, but while Yale is great and Yale is Ivy League, Yale is also very expensive.

And the drama school is a graduate school, which meant Quinn would have had to commit to four years before she'd even able to pursue the dream she chased out of Lima. It was barely a semester before she decided to transfer to something more economical, something that wouldn't leave her in debt for the next fifty years.

Bryn Mawr isn't cheap, but it's cheaper, by about twenty thousand a year. It's also a little closer to home, which makes her mom happy.

She's been learning a lot about herself, ever since she transferred. Like, she's actually really interested in women's studies, to the point where she's made it her major. Maybe it's the influence of being enrolled in a women's college with a strong emphasis on, well, women.

Theater is still an interest, but it's been shifted to her minor. Originally, it was the other way around, but things change and Quinn's learning that change can be really, really good.

She'd much rather be playing sports, but after the accident, her back's never quite been the same, and the school doesn't have a cheerleading squad, anyway.

So, away games and clipboards and picking up dry cleaning. She's okay with it, because she's genuinely happy.

For once.

It's an overcast afternoon with a forecast for light rain, but the game's still on. The third of the season, it's their first away game and there's a bit of a rivalry between the schools, but nothing like Yale vs. Harvard. Still, Dickinson beat them out for the final four, last year, so there's a sense of competition in the air, even though this game isn't the end all, be all for either team. The season's barely even begun.

Quinn's still getting the hang of working out the rosters since Brooke, the team manager, primarily deals with them. Even so, she has her own clipboard with both teams line-ups on them and she knows enough about the game to understand exactly what it means. But because her duties are more about keeping the uniforms clean and making sure all the samples are submitted for drug testing, she's had to learn what she can on the fly.

Midway through the first half, she finds herself looking across the field at a player who's on the bench, her Red Devils jacket zipped over her uniform. She's bent over, adjusting her sock over her left shin guard, but when she looks up from it to watch the current play on the field, Quinn can't stop looking at her face. It's uncanny.

She picks her roster up off the empty space on the bench next to her and scans the player list, but she doesn't spot the name she's looking for until she looks at the list of substitutes and there she sees it: Berry, R.

Except, Dickinson is definitely not NYADA and Carlisle, PA is a far cry from New York, NY.

It's been a whirlwind couple of years for Quinn with switching schools and changing majors and basically realigning her life and finding her chi or whatever's happened that's left her feeling so centered, but she feels like she'd know if Rachel Berry was going to college in Pennsylvania and playing soccer.

It crosses Quinn's mind that maybe she's undercover, studying for a role. Maybe she's starring in _She's the Man: The Musical_ and this is a character study. It's a stretch but if anyone's been known to reach further than necessary, it's Rachel.

The game closes without Rachel taking the field, which cements the idea in Quinn's mind that this must definitely be observational.

She's driven herself, because it's the weekend and she's heading back to Ohio to see her sister's new baby, so she's not bound to the bus when it pulls out of the parking lot for the two hour drive back to campus. Maybe it's a little weird to wait for someone to come out of the locker room, but it's not like she's a stranger. She'd call or text or something, but she bought a new phone over the summer and had to reprogram all her contacts and she's realizing, right now, that Rachel's Facebook has been locked down and the number isn't accessible.

It's okay, though, because here comes Rachel, along with three of the other Dickinson players, and Quinn approaches the group to say, "Good game, today."

They return the sentiment and one of them good-naturedly comments that they'll be ready, next time.

"I'll meet you guys there, okay?" Rachel says. It's the first time Quinn's heard her voice in over a year. Rachel's teammates nod and offer Quinn a polite goodbye before they continue on.

"It really was a good game," Quinn says.

Rachel shrugs, eyes on the parked car behind Quinn. "I didn't even play."

"Maybe if you had, you could have had a chance at beating us."

"Yeah," is the quiet reply. "So..." Rachel's energy is somber, not at all like the vibrant ingenue Quinn got to know back in Lima.

"What are you doing here?"

Another shrug. "Running late for a party."

"Oh. I can... If you need to meet your friends-"

Rachel scoffs. "I'm just their designated driver. I don't even know if they like me." Her arms are crossed over the front of her red and gray hoodie and the rest of her small frame is lost under a pair of slightly baggy track pants.

"Oh," Quinn repeats. "Did you want to-"

"No," Rachel's already pushing past her as she speaks.

The resemblance between this girl and Rachel Berry is uncanny, but Quinn has no idea what's happened to the girl she once considered a friend.

But she's determined to figure out where she went.

She has a six hour drive ahead of her and she's already not going to get to Columbus until after midnight, but she's starving and she now has an extreme aversion to multi-tasking while driving, so she stops at a cafe in town reads her copy of The Handmaid's Tale while she works through a bowl of vegetable soup and half a tuna melt.

She remembers to leave a decent tip and packs her book in her bag. On her way back to the car, she detours into a coffee house. The place certainly isn't empty, but the energy pales in comparison to the pizza place across the street that's still buzzing from Happy Hour and, though the window, Quinn can see the two dollar beer pitchers being passed around.

Her drink of choice is a dirty chai and while she waits, she looks over the selection of bagged coffee beans and travel mugs. She makes an impulse buy of a french press and a bag of decaf for her sister, who's a coffee junkie, but she's been pregnant and now she's breastfeeding so caffeine is still cautious territory. It's funny, because during the length of Frannie's pregnancy, she kept calling Quinn for advice and it was a weird shift in dynamic, because Quinn's always been used to being the little sister, the one who's supposed to learn from her big sister.

By the time the press and beans are wrapped up, her order's ready and she claims her cup. It's not until she's walking toward the door that she sees Rachel sitting in the corner, hunched over a textbook, highlighter in hand and color coded Post-It tags in immediate reach.

Despite the way Rachel abruptly left her alone in the parking lot, Quinn has no qualms about approaching her table. When she gets there, though, she isn't sure what to say, so she tries to quickly make out what Rachel's studying, but she doesn't come up with anything fast enough.

"What?" Rachel asks. She doesn't even look up from the section she's highlighting.

"I..." Okay, maybe Quinn will stick to a topic she knows is obvious. "I've never seen you actually study for anything, before. It's basically just how I imagined it."

Rachel scoffs and snatches up a green tag, which she uses to mark the section she's been highlighting, then she dramatically flips the page.

"Did-"

"I have a big test next week, so maybe you could leave me alone?"

Quinn adjusts her grip on the gift bag in her hand. "I just wanted to say hi."

"You did that after the game." Rachel raises her head enough to make eye contact with Quinn. "But, hi."

This is so unlike how Quinn remembers Rachel, at all. "Sorry I interrupted your studying. I guess I'll see you at the next match." She waits, but Rachel doesn't seem to have any further comment, so she adds, "Bye," and pivots away from the table.

As she unlocks her car door, she spots a few of the other players from Rachel's team through the window of the pizza place. She knows Rachel's always been the studious type, but it seems a little out of character for her to completely avoid a celebration with her teammates.

She still has no idea why Rachel's even here. But the textbook and the intense focus suggests that it's not just some kind of three week stint for a character consultation. But if Rachel isn't here to play someone else, where is she, at all?

Quinn's dirty chai is gone within her first half hour on the road and with it are her thoughts about Rachel. She's completely wrapped up in her "Girls Like Us" audiobook that she's listening to for one of her classes and it's impossible for her not to get lost in the examination of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Carly Simon. Her mother's album collection was one of her earliest exposures to music outside of church and Quinn's just about always been aware of these women and their songs.

This is just one of the reasons why she absolutely loves her major. She finally feels like her entire life, as rough as things seemed to get, was preparing her for something bigger instead of setting her up to fail.

She stops at a gas station in Bedford and tops of her tank, checking her Facebook while she waits in line to pay for a bottle of water. There's a message from Santana and wall post from her roommate, Justine, that's some video she doesn't have time to watch. The line's taking forever, so she has time to type "Rachel Berry" into the search box and there, where it always is, at the top of the list, is a locked account that just shows Rachel's name and blank profile photo.

This is the same Rachel Berry who, once upon a time, had a headshot in that blank space and requested that all casting inquiries be sent to her agent, which was really just an email domain she'd set up for herself. This was the kind of stuff they talked about for the short time they actually were friends, that first semester of freshman year, when Quinn was just a train ride away.

Before she can stop herself, she sends a friend request. It's not the first time, but it's been a while since she's tried to contact Rachel this way. She's never gotten a response since Rachel deactivated her old account last year and she assumes she probably will be ignored again.

When Quinn first noticed Rachel's Facebook was gone, she sent a text message. It went unanswered. It was right after finals and she'd gone to send Rachel an early birthday message, something to suggest that maybe they could meet up in Lima over the holiday, because they hadn't really been talking that much, with school and scheduling. Rachel was either always in class or auditioning or socializing and Quinn didn't expect anything less from her. She was busy with her own academic career, attending rallies and book readings and learning just how fucked up the world was and how much she wanted to help fix it.

During her time back in Ohio, she drove by the Berry home a few times, hoping to stop by and wish the family a Happy Hanukkah, but the house was dark and there was never any sign of anyone being home. She assumed that Rachel's dads possibly opted to spend the holiday break in the city with their daughter. She didn't blame them, because New York City at Christmas certainly had more draw than the famous dancing Christmas lights house, over on the north side of town.

She wondered about her friend, because she still considered Rachel very much a friend, even if they hadn't spoken in weeks or seen each other in months. Rachel was a constant in her life, even when she wasn't present.

But Quinn also had other friends. She had classes and projects, study groups and lectures, and before she knew it, her sophomore year of college was over and she was spending the summer with her sister, helping Frannie pick out colors for the new nursery, because Doug was tired of his wife always changing her mind and begged his sister-in-law to help with the decision.

She's shaken out of her memory when the cashier waves her forward.

In the car, as she twists the cap off her Vitamin Water, she wonders what Rachel was doing that summer.

She honestly has no idea.


	2. One night to speed up truth

While Quinn was looking at swatches of Canary Yellow and Desert Sage, Rachel was sitting in an evaluation session, listening to everyone around her talk as if she wasn't there.

It'd been six months since the "incident," two and a half since the settlement, and and three weeks since Leroy Berry contacted an old college friend who happened to be on the admissions board of Dickinson College.

"Genevieve, I really appreciate you taking all of this into consideration with such short notice."

"For you, Leroy, it's not a problem."

Rachel knew it wasn't because of Leroy or old friendship or anything sentimental. It was because of the million dollar donation being made to the school, the one that was nearly ten percent of her settlement, the same pool of money she wasn't allowed to touch until after graduation.

She spent most of the meeting with her eyes focused on the table in front of her, looking through the lined yellow pages of the legal pad, beyond the varnished mahogany, and into the past where her hopes and dreams once lived, before they were snuffed out.

Everything she had was gone.

Her father and this woman she's never even seen before this meeting were discussing her future, her education, and all she could think about was how she has no idea if she's even good at anything, anymore.

"Rachel?"

She looked up to see her father offering an expectant smile. A business smile. Not the kind he used to give her before. "Sorry, I was thinking about something."

"Genevieve was asking about extracurriculars."

Everything Rachel loved isn't really an option. "I... what do you suggest?"

"Well, given your, um," even Genevieve sounded awkward about all of it and she didn't even know Rachel, not at her peak, not ever, "history in dance training, it's possible you may enjoy being on one of our sports teams."

It took one glance at her father for Rachel to see exactly where this was going. Being on an athletic team meant she'd automatically be expected to stay clean.

She didn't care. At this point, her life was about getting from point A to point B.

"What starts first?"

"Soccer tryouts are in July."

She put on her best show smile, a business smile, and said, "Sounds great."

* * *

Rachel stares out the coffeehouse window, her brain muddled and overloaded from the thirty-six pages of World History she's just read and highlighted and marked. Even though she's supposed to be a junior, she's taking freshman classes, because NYADA doesn't have general education courses. The goal of a NYADA graduate is to work professionally as a performer, so there really isn't a need for standard core classes.

Two years, wasted.

As in, they would have been wasted, even if she hadn't fucked up. What if she'd wanted to teach music, even as a guest instructor? Would she have been able to?

Fuck music. She dedicated her entire life to it and what did it get her?

Across the street, she can see Hannah and Liz sitting in one of the window booths. There are other people with them, but Rachel can't make them out from where she sits. They're already drunk, she knows that much. It'll probably be another hour before they're ready to go back to campus, and then they'll pile in her Nissan and she'll drive them back to Dickinson. They'll smell like beer and one or both of them will probably have some guy they're bringing back with them.

She's become the damn Intoxicab.

At the very least, watching them fall all over each other and sloppily make out with strangers makes her feel better about opting for coffee over alcohol. Not that liquor was ever really her poison.

She doesn't let herself think too much about that.

Instead, she picks up her phone and logs into her Facebook. She really only ever uses it to keep in touch with her dads, Cassie, and Noah. There are no new messages, but she does have a friend request and she's already fairly sure it's from Quinn before she even opens it.

If she denies it, the way she always does, she knows Quinn will just send another, especially now that she's seen where Rachel is. And they'll run into each other again, because there's another match between Dickinson and Bryn Mawr in a couple weeks.

She doesn't accept or deny the request. She navigates to Quinn's page and opens a new message. In the box, she types: what do you want?

She figures that, out of anyone she's ever known, Quinn Fabray will appreciate that she's getting right to the point.

* * *

It's nearly one when Quinn pulls into Frannie's driveway and her sister is crossing the lawn to greet her before Quinn has time to kill the ignition.

"I thought I'd have to wake you up," Quinn says, as her big sister practically pulls her out the car.

"I have a newborn, I don't sleep."

"I missed out on that thrill, so you'll have to tell me all about it." It's self-deprecating joke Quinn probably wouldn't make to anyone, but this is her sister and it's also the truth.

Frannie has Quinn by the hand and Quinn figures she can get her bag, later. "Hurry up, I want you to meet him."

"Aren't you not supposed to wake a sleeping baby? Isn't this your sacred time or something?"

"We'll whisper. And he's bound to wake up any second to eat, again."

They tiptoe through the house like they're trying to avoid parental wrath. Doug's also apparently asleep and Frannie insists he's earned his shut-eye, so they quietly navigate the hall until they're in the same room Quinn helped paint Desert Sage, that summer.

There's a nightlight on the dresser that dimly illuminates the nursery enough for the two women to peer over the edge of the crib at the tiny baby boy who sleeps on his back and occasionally shifts his feet while he slumbers.

"Peter the Magnificent, meet Lucy the Valiant," Frannie whispers.

"Ah, another Narnian royal, I see," Quinn softly replies. She curtsies and bows her head. "Your highness."

"Does royalty have to bow to each other?"

"That's something we royals will worry about and not you, Frannie." Quinn can't help the giggle that escapes, because she's tired and it's actually kind of funny. "The Royal We."

"I know you like to believe I'm jealous that you got named after Mom's childhood Narnia obsession."

"You are the one who insisted everyone call you Susan when you were twelve."

"It's my middle name, asshole. And, you're not even one to talk about that, at all, Luce."

Frannie's the only other person on the planet who still calls Quinn by her given name. She doesn't even mind, because it sounds like the right name for her older sister to be calling her. Anyway, she's pretty sure there's no way she could convince her to call her anything else.

"Well, you're obsessed, too. You went and did the same thing to your kid."

"They're good books, okay?"

"Are you two going to be up all night?" comes a male voice from the hallway.

Both Quinn and her sister turn at the same time to shush Doug, but it's too late and Peter's squirming and making baby noises that border on crying.

"Can I pick him up?" Quinn asks.

Frannie graciously waves toward the crib. "Please."

Carefully, Quinn reaches in and picks up her nephew, careful to heed all the baby holding warnings she's ever heard in life. There's still a part of her that automatically seems to know just how to do it and there's a very specific tug on her heart as she holds him against her chest and makes soothing sounds to attempt to lull him back to sleep.

When she finally climbs into bed in the guest room, she can still smell baby powder on her hands. When she drifts off to sleep, she dreams of Beth, who's already four and a half, but in Quinn's dreams, she's always the same seven pounds, four ounces Quinn held in her arms that day in the Lima General Hospital delivery room.

In the morning, Quinn isn't sure how to respond to Rachel's message, because she doesn't even really know what she wants or what she's expected. They've fallen out of touch and, for some reason, Rachel has no desire to pick up their friendship. Or, at least, that's how it seems, given the way she's reacted to Quinn.

She's staring at her phone while sitting at the breakfast table and Frannie finally snatches it up out of her hand.

"Hey!" Quinn reaches to grab it back, but Frannie holds it away from her. "Come on, I was trying to do something."

"Well, I've asked you about ten times how many pancakes you want and you've responded with a big absolutely nothing. So, either you're not hungry or you're one of those rude texting people."

"I wasn't texting."

Frannie glances at the screen. "Okay, Facebooking."

"Two." Quinn holds out her hand for the phone.

"Two, what?"

"Two pancakes."

"I meant, what do you say, Lucy the Rudest."

"Two pancakes, please, bitch."

There's a moment where it seems like Frannie's about to throw the phone at her, but she ultimately just slaps it back into Quinn's waiting palm. "Who are you even talking to? Because it doesn't look like they're interested," she comments, turning back to the stove.

"Why are you so nosy?" Quinn asks.

"Because I care," Frannie replies, offering a wide Cheerios worthy smile over her shoulder.

"She's... someone I used to know."

"What'd you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything!" Okay, that's actually not true. "I mean, we didn't always get along. But we eventually were friends."

"Doesn't really sound like it."

"You don't know my life, Fran."

"I know enough."

Quinn wants to be irritated at her sister, but there are two delicious smelling golden pancakes suddenly in front of her, which unfairly shifts her mood. "What time are we leaving for Mom's?"

"Around two? I talked to her earlier and she said she's making a ham."

"Of course she is." Quinn shakes her head and laughs as she pours syrup over her pancakes. "It's not even a holiday."

"Oh, but it is. The prodigal daughter's coming home."

"I've been at school! Not... out sowing my wild oats."

"No, you did that, already."

Quinn frowns. "Okay, that's totally uncalled for." She waits until Frannie looks like she might actually apologize, then continues. "And anyway, if I hadn't done that, who would you have called at three in the morning during your pregnancy to ask innocuous questions about heartburn or if I ever had sex dreams about authority figures."

"I still can't believe your answer to that, by the way."

"Stay out of my dreamscape."

"Seriously, though. Mr. Schuester?"

"It was one t-" she catches her sister's glare. "Okay, twice. But I was a very confused pregnant teen!"

"Yeah, well, you're the one who got knocked up by a guy named Truck."

"Puck." Which reminds her that she's supposed to let him know when she'll be in town, because he's having a party later that night. Quinn picks her phone back up and exits the Facebook application to send a text.

"And we're back to the phones."

Peter's cry comes through the baby monitor and Quinn doesn't even look up at Frannie when she says, "Leave me alone and go feed your baby."

The drive from Columbus to Lima takes about two hours. Quinn follows behind Doug's SUV and swaps out her audiobook for one of her driving playlists. It includes a couple songs that have always had the cut since high school and one, in particular, is an Avril Lavigne track that always makes her think of Rachel.

She suddenly knows exactly what she wants to say, but she has to wait until they stop somewhere, because there's no way she's ever texting (or Facebooking) while she's driving. One near-death experience is enough for her, thank you. Anyway, that gives her time to spend the rest of the drive refining her reply and reflecting on the possibilities that have left Rachel so cold and distant at a school in the middle of Pennsylvania.

* * *

**I want to know how you're doing. I want to know why I never knew you were interested in soccer. I want to know what I can do, if anything, to get you to talk to me. I want to let you know that our friendship still means something to me, even though we haven't talked in a long time.**

**That's what I want.**

**- Quinn**

Rachel's in her dorm room, the one she has all to herself. As much as her fathers were reluctant to let her be alone without someone to keep an eye on her, Rachel was insistent that it certainly wasn't fair to put that burden on another student and, besides, she'd signed an agreement to attend all of her classes barring actual illness or injury and her participation in a team sport meant she has to show up practice and games, so it isn't as if she would have much time to get herself into any trouble.

She doesn't want any trouble.

She doesn't want any of this.

She definitely doesn't want to explain to Quinn Fabray, of all people, how she's doing.

That said, as much as she's purposely distanced herself from just about everyone she's ever known, maybe Quinn's exactly the person who would understand all of this. But she's not even close to ready to opening up about the last year and a half of her life.

Soccer, though. That's a safe subject. And since she's given Quinn the cold shoulder twice in a row, she feels somewhat obligated to offer something, because Quinn doesn't have to be nice to her, she didn't have to say hello, and she certainly didn't have to send such a damn thoughtful message.

Obligation, though, has its limits and Rachel finds herself sending something less than a formal response.

**I could ask you the same thing. Bryn Mawr doesn't have cheerleading?**

She's actually pretty sure they don't, but she doesn't bother to edit anything before she hits send.

It's barely a minute before there's another message.

**Nope. And even if we did, I haven't been able to do a standing tuck since before the accident. That's why I'm only assistant managing for the soccer team instead of playing, though I probably would have picked volleyball if I were able to seriously consider a sport.**

Okay, now Rachel actually feels bad. How could she have forgotten about the accident? Or, it's not even that the memory is completely erased from her brain. She knows Quinn was hit by a truck. It's impossible for her to forget.

She just isn't really in the habit of thinking about other people, anymore.

She doesn't know what to say in response to Quinn's reply.

So, she doesn't say anything, at all.


End file.
